Until Now
How better to start retirement than with another road trip, twenty-five years on? But is the magic still there?
Elaine honestly wasn’t certain, but there was no going back.
She placed her suitcase beside her husband’s. The cases made quite an odd pair – hers a bright new tartan, his a battered brown. He’d had his, she knew, for forty years.
Four decades – where had they gone? She supposed everyone asked the same question, even though there was no answer to be had.
The years simply seemed to vanish, at first into night-time feeds and nappy changes, and then into rushing to football/swimming/clubs/sports days – all the while trying to build up her business designing websites and chop carrots for supper.
No wonder it went so fast.
And it was a relief, in a way, that those days were behind them.
They had made it. They had even, she dared to hope, been successful at most of it, which is no small feat.
If the house now felt a little empty – well, at least it was also quiet.
We’d better get our skates on,” Stuart said.
“So we’ll miss the traffic?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Of course! You know me.”
He tossed the keys in the air and caught them, for a second looking like the young man she’d taken that first road trip with when she was only twenty-one. Then he turned away.
She had learned then about his obsession with leaving early and missing the traffic. That was how she knew a future with him could work.
Who wouldn’t prefer to greet the sunrise on a mostly open road to being stuck in gridlock?
She threw him what she hoped was a jaunty smile as she did up her seatbelt.
“Our first road trip, alone together, in twenty-five years. Excited?”
“Of course,” he replied, and the automatic, almost absent, tone of his response, sent a shiver up her spine.
They should be happy and excited – she wanted to be – but something was missing.
She couldn’t put her finger on what, though.
He reversed the car, and they were off. A week in the Highlands.
What if, she wondered, they arrived only to discover they didn’t belong together any more?
What if, in all the sleepless nights and rushing about, they had become two totally different people from the ones in their wedding photograph?
Elaine kept a smile plastered on her face as she fiddled with the radio. Stuart looked straight ahead, saying nothing as she filled the silence between them with music and kept her fears secret.
“It’s so beautiful here,” she breathed, taking in the view of the mountains from their hotel balcony.
“I thought you’d like it.”
“Oh, I do.”
The truth was that she liked just about everywhere. It was always the excitement of adventure that made her happiest. Although she did love a spectacular view, too.
“So, what are you going to do with all your free time, Mrs Retiree?”
She hesitated. She felt his arm brush hers on the balcony rail.
He was so close. She should just come clean and speak her mind.
Wasn’t that for the best?
“Stuart –”
Her phone bleated. Loudly. She pulled it out of her pocket. Dinner reservations, the reminder read.
“Better get our skates on,” she said.
Swaying together on the dance floor after a sumptuous dinner, she couldn’t believe they were really empty-nest pensioners. She still felt like the young woman on that first road trip.
“Tell me your thoughts,” Stuart murmured as they danced.
She leaned back in his arms, sensing that it wasn’t an idle question.
Looking into his face, she could see concern, even a little fear, in his expression. She wondered if he saw the same in hers.
And then, in a rush, the words came. Only they came from Stuart, not her.
How he was afraid they had drifted apart, how he feared he was no longer interesting to her – or interesting at all – and how worried he was over the time they suddenly had anew, and alone.
She placed her fingertip to his lips, stopping him mid-sentence.
“We’ll be fine. I was worried, too, but now…” She smiled up at him, feeling so light she wondered she didn’t float away.
“I do love you, Elaine Barry.”
“I know. I love you, too. And just think – everything we do is up to us now.
“If we want, we can sleep until noon and eat Pot Noodles for supper.”
He grinned. “Or buy last-minute flights to Rome.” His eyes twinkled. “I hope you’re not too busy next week.”
“Funny, but I seem to be completely free,” she laughed.
Rome. As his lips brushed hers, she remembered kissing him in the ancient and beautiful Roman Forum and the promise they had made to return there… a promise they had not kept.
Until now.
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